Bulletin #71: Women's health under attack in the Gaza Strip

This fortnight

By International Working Women's Day, Israel had killed at least 9,000 women in Gaza. While the attacks on Palestine continue, women bear a disproportionate burden as health workers, carers, and parents. This burden is related not only to the widespread destruction of healthcare infrastructure but also to the aid blockades enforced by Israel. As a result, women, girls, and new mothers are facing severe shortages of essential hygiene products and food.

Despite the repression and violence, the healthcare system in Palestine endures. The Health Work Committees, one of the key health organizations operating in the occupied territories, is among the associations implementing its programs in the face of administrative and physical violence by the Israeli Occupying Forces.

Health workers' own health has been a back-burner issue for a while, although trade unionists and researchers have warned against the consequences of uncontrolled overtime and inadequate staffing, direct results of cuts to public budgets. In a new report, Public Services International documented the effects of current workplace practices and fiscal policies on public sector health workers in different countries.

Physicians in Kenya are among those experiencing the consequences of cuts to public budgets, driven by international financial institutions. They have recently launched a new wave of industrial action, protesting against the government's unwillingness to commit to adequately funding public health services and against police repression of trade union leaders.

Migrant health and care workers in the United Kingdom face new dangers as Rishi Sunak's government pursues increasingly repressive migration policies. Amidst a health workforce crisis in the National Health System, migrant workers play a key role in providing essential care, yet often they cannot make ends meet at the end of the month.

The ultra-processed food industry appears to be luckier, as major producers and their networks continue to use lobbies and interest groups to infiltrate global governance spaces—and ensure new policies and guidelines do not harm their interests.

In focus: Health in Palestine

Women in Gaza remain among the most impacted by war

Women and girls in the Gaza Strip are facing a disproportionate effect of Israeli attacks amid lack of sanitary materials, food, and women’s health services

Israel’s blocking of aid to Gaza is a weapon in its brutal war against Palestinians

Israel has defied ICJ’s interim verdict as well as a UN Security Council resolution calling for increased access to aid. It has instead deliberately blocking aid, causing a massive humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Gaza’s health set back in time for years to come

A ceasefire is indispensable if Gaza is to be given a chance to rebuild its health system, however, Israeli repression against healthcare infrastructure continues

Video: Health Work Committees

Founded in the 80s during the first Intifada, the Health Work Committees have played a crucial role providing health services to the Palestinians living in the West Bank, Palestine. Hundreds of thousands health services are provided every year, lots of them related with the brutal Israeli occupation